Page 47 of When the Walls Come Down
My belly did a flip. Coffee drinks. Pastries. Treats and compliments. A stack of work to dig into. And let’s not forget my view—him in all his sexy, nerdy glory. He really was like Clark Kent in a way. One part business, one part swoony and irresistible.
I could get used to this. “Thank you, Shane.”
“You are most welcome. Now, get that sweet ass to work.” He grimaced, but his smile stretched the width of his handsome face.
I giggled and covered the receiver with my hand as if whispering a secret into his ear. “Yeah, that all-the-way crossed the line. Like hurdled it. You didn’t even see the line, did you?”
“Just be ready by three, and we’ll kick some ass.” Then, in a move I’d never seen before, he made a quick kissy face like he was planting a fast one on my lips and hung up the phone.
God, I hoped this worked.The day flew by. Like literally. Hours passed like minutes—and I loved each and every one.
I drank the coffee, wolfed down the Danish he’d left for me, and hit the ground running. For as much education as I’d had, Shane had proven campaigns and projects that had moved Bay Brewing from merely steadily growing to soaring by their competitors. Seriously, some of the things he’d done with the department and some of the hires he’d made were like reading straight out of my old textbooks. He knew his shit, and what he didn’t know, he found in the employees he’d surrounded himself with. Bay Brewing and Two Ships together had the shared marketing equivalent of the Dream Team—and I’m not talking Olympic basketball. I’m talking about my 1995 Atlanta Braves.
Lucky for me, I hadn’t been out of college long and still had my super cramming powers in full force, so by the time I got a text from Shane saying Casey was on his way in, I felt ready.
I felt confident.
I felt like we were a team that would be impossible to say no to.
With the few changes I’d sent to Shane earlier in the day, he already had the reprinted mockups under his arm when he knocked on my doorjamb.
“Ready for this?” he asked. His warm, brown eyes were as hopeful as I felt.
I took a deep, steadying breath and blew it out, more nervous about this meeting than I had been about my initial interview with Casey months ago.
I guessed, now, I had even more to lose.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
I packed up my folders, and we marched upstairs together. When we walked in, Casey was sitting at the head of the boardroom table, FaceTiming with someone.
“Well, when he gets done playing with it, you can have it back. Roe, you have your own. Go play with that one.” He rolled his eyes in jest as we walked deeper into the room. “Well, then charge it. Do you want me to call your mom?”
“No!” We heard loudly over his speaker.
“Then go find something else to play with until your brother is done with it. That or I’m sending your brother to Switzerland with the Switch and you’ll have to buy a plane ticket to get over there to play with it at all.”
“Daddy!” Roe cried. “You know I don’t have much money. I can’t pay for plane tickets.”
“Then what are you gonna do, Little Bee?”
“I’ll go play with my LOLs,” she relented.
“Good girl. I’ll be home in a little bit, and then I’ll rough Maddox up for you.”
“Okay.”
He mocked her pouty response. “Okay. I love you. Bye-bye.”
Shane wiped the smile off his face. After all, they were his family, so I was sure he found the whole thing amusing.
Casey scowled and then said, “Now, if you two called me in here to settle another silly juvenile argument, you’ve just heard that I’ve met my quota for the day.”
“No, not at all.” I spoke up first. “In fact, we worked together on something today that might impress you.”
He waved his hand, signaling for us to come down to the end of the table where he was and take a seat.
“We worked up some cider promo prototypes for bars and restaurants, and Maggie put her special touch on them and they look even better now.”
Casey perked right up. “Well, I sure as fuck wasn’t expecting that so soon—and from the two of you together. That’s great.”
I nodded. “And just like Shane did with the overwhelmingly successful Low Bay campaign a year ago, we added in the fact that a few of the new ciders are more on the light side of things to bring in more health conscious and/or females into the demographic that we think you’re aiming to target with this line.”
Slack jawed, Casey looked at his brother-in-law. “I just got those numbers back from product research Friday. I didn’t think I’d sent them out to you yet.”
